Our week continued with more workshops for both students and teacher. We're all learning a lot from each other,having now seen each other teach lots of times, which is great. The biggest challenge can often be the wide range of English ability in any given group of students - each session has students of different ages and from different schools. Only a limited number of schools in Hong Kong teach primarily in the medium of English. We've quickly learnt to alter our session according to the group, and they have all been able to deliver a speech in the debate we do with them at the end which is great to see.
We had full days teaching on Friday and Saturday, but Sunday was our free day, a
nd we used it to head to Macau. Macau, like Hong Kong, is a 'special administrative region' of China, and is about an hour away on the Ferry. We headed first to the Ruins of St Paul's, the ruins of a 16th Century Cathedral and College. On top of a hill overlooking Macau, and packed with tourists, both the view and atmosphere were great. After trying some Portuguese egg tarts (highly recommended!) we headed through the bustling of the town centre. Up until 1999 Macau was a Portuguese Colony, and the squares and streets feel very European in style. We then headed to the A-Ma Temple, one of the oldest Taoist temples in Macau, built in 1488, dedicated to Matsu, the goddess of seafarers and fisherman. It was extremely beautiful, and with numerous shrines and incense it also smelt very nice! Our final stop - in contrast to the spiritual, beautiful and calm temple - was one of the many Casinos in Macau. It was, as expected, large opulent and busy!
After getting the ferry back to Hong Kong, we had an Indian meal in a local restaurant - Jagdish was able to provide excellent advice, which proved very successful! We ended what had been a very good day with a reflexology foot massage from one of the numerous and cheap massage salons around the Soho/Mid-levels area. We are all now relaxed, rested, and ready for another week of teaching!
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